Annual Meeting: How it enriches us

Judith Hedrick

Why do we have Annual Meeting each year? The Church Manual (Article XIII, Section 1) requires a meeting in June for listening to reports from the officers and from the Field. The reports inform the members by providing accounts of what has happened in their Mother Church during the past year. The reports inspire listeners with spiritual insights into the activities; they also offer accounts of progress and healing. It is as natural for members to come together in thought, with the spirit of loyalty and unity, to listen to the reports as it is for the officers to be there themselves. We are all united in this one Church.

Do members have a role other than listening and receiving? Yes. Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Brethren, our annual meeting … requires you to report progress, to refresh memory, to rejuvenate the branches and to vivify the buds, to bend upward the tendrils and to incline the vine towards the parent trunk” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 125:4-8).

“Brethren, our annual meeting … requires you to report progress”

What if we made a list noting our spiritual progress this past year and had that list on hand as we listened? What if we refreshed our memories of the good God has unfolded in our lives, community, and world? Would not this open thought to all the good in the messages shared that day? Would it not help rejuvenate us and our branch churches and societies?

Annual Meeting 2014 is online only. You are invited to watch in groups or individually on Monday, June 2, at 1:00 p.m., Boston time. If that isn’t convenient, the replay will be available within a day. The webcast and more information is on the Annual Meeting Web page. If you have any questions about the meeting, please email AnnualMeeting@christianscience.com.

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit